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Topic: 16+ Volts on LED lighting (Read 2936 times)

I have a few home built LED "Bottle" LED lights. I wrapped strips of LED's around plastic bottle in a spiral and run them at rated 12V +/-. I also have some "bulb shaped" LED's rated at 3.5V that came with resistors. I made up a couple of plastic light bulbs, look like incandescent bulbs, and used them at 12V in our greenhouse. Problem is, after several months of not much usage, a few of these parts are not working. ?

I have a small battery pack of A123 26650 battery cells in 6S8P configuration. That pack runs the computer/UPS/Modem when the power goes off, regularly. Gives me 30 minutes of run time and shut down, so I don't over draw the cells. Soon, I will have a smart phone with Internet WiFi, and not need to be connected to the phone line. Might even shut down the expensive phone line.

Now, Finally, I have 5 Nissan Leaf Modules rated at 15.2V nominal-16.8 fully charged. These are 4S1P modules with cells being 4.20V full charged. I also have part of a Chevy Volt battery to group with the Leaf modules. All are the same Voltage cells.

Questions I have are, how can I run what I listed using these modules? Is there a way an un educated in electronics person, can add resistors, or someone build a circuit for me, that I would gladly pay for, or, is there some other way to do this ?

Will the UPS charger be sufficient to charge the packs, because, for now, I still use the battery packs for temporary power.

Soon, I will receive my long awaited crate from the USA, it's IN CR at this time, so I can finish up several charging systems I have started. Right now, I run on 12V or so. I plan to charge 24V packs and split the usage, due to light loads and monitor each split off group.

After the first of the year, I want to buy a dependable Inverter. Then, I can run a fridge and everything else in the house, on DC or 120 AC, depending on how I wire up the house. I have plenty of experience with normal electricity. It's this Low Voltage stuff that throws me.

If electronically inclined, a standard 2596 module can also be used. The regulators sense voltage is 1.25V. A resistor can be chosen that produces 1.25V at the desired current in the negative lead. The sense lead from the resistor goes to the low side of the sense pot. At about 400ma a half watt is wasted in the resistor.

For a little less loss a PNP resistor can be used to sense on the positive LED side instead